Background: ¨Medical education is more than the acquisition of medical knowledge .There is an anticipated influence of the trainee’s environment on how trainees treat patients and colleagues for the rest of their career.Communication is a key component of professionalism in medicine. Most of the research on swearing has been conducted in patients and not among health care providers.
Methods:
After IRB approval, anonymous questionnaires were distributed to medical students , residents, fellows and attendings. These measured the prevalence and attitude of respondents towards the use of unprofessional language in clinical training. All analyses were done using R v3.2.3. Each variable assessed in the survey was summarized for the entire population of responders.
Results:
304 individuals responded to the survey and most people (96%) reported being exposed to swearing in the teaching environment. Surgical specialties used curse words the most (74%) followed by the emergency department (19%).Residents used swearing the most (55%) , attending physicians (24%) and fellows were the least users (2.3%).80% did not think swearing was necessary in medical education while 18 % thought there were circumstances which warranted swearing. Most did not think swearing reflected negatively on character (56%) values (67%) or competency (92%) or that swearing had a negative impact on their work (78%).
Discussions: Although theuse of unprofessional language is prevalent in medical education, itappears to not havea negative impact. Additional research on the impact on swearing in medical education is required.
Keywords: Communication Skills, Professionalism
Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2017, Student, Resident, Faculty, Professionalism, Interpersonal & Communication Skills, GME, UME, Quality & Safety, Team-Based Learning, Faculty Development,
Roopina Sangha, MD, MPH, Henry Ford Hospital; Takunda Mugwisi, MD; Ilinca Lupea, MD ; David Richardson, MD
